OPINION: Fantastically Corrupt: Deregulation And Devaluation Are We Speaking In Tongues?

Nigeria is a fantastically corrupt nation thus spoke zarathustra David Cameron while wandering in the Burkingham palace with the Queen in preparation for a journey to Kabul and Abuja where he is going to preach the eradication of corruption by pledging to return all the looted funds warehoused in the ”Queendom” of Great Britain for the benefits of the poor impoverished Kabulians and Abujans.

No need for apologism. Give us our commonwealth looted and taken to your Queendom and there shall be peace in the land of fantastically corrupt people thus spoke Sai Baba while interacting with Mo Ibrahim and the message is vividly encapsulated in a refined diplomatic envelope given to the Prime minister of the ”Queendom” of Great Britain the land that feeds on dirty money and corruption.

As we all know the drama of an unforced creutzfeldt jakob mouth disease occuring within 24hours from David Cameron’s stable has been ”mitigated” by equally incomprehensible statement that it was a comment made in a private discussion with the Queen, eyah! eyah!!

This again is a manifestation of the jundiced, prejudiced, condescending mindsets prevalent in the western world about developing countries, while the western world consistently have been the receptacles for most of the stolen commonwealth from developing nations, Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy!! at work.

Now let me move away from the Zarathustra malaise to the underground spirito-intellectual healing of deregulation and devaluation discourse springing up like mushroom again after we have disconnected our electrically charged medulla oblongata from the Roforofo fight that the debate generated in recent times.

We are now speaking in tongues Pentecostal-Charismatic economic jargons about deregulation, pseudo-deregulation, partial-deregulation, devaluation, partial-devaluation and over-devaluation, somersaultingly speaking in a pseudogrammatical language that is incomprehensible to the receivers because of the lacuna inherent in the communication paradigm.

Nigeria is now a glossolalia enclave where government policies decisions are communicated in magical speeches about numbers A la Lai Mohammed; 10,000 JOBS TO BE CREATED FROM MASQUERADE DRESS MAKING, 600,000 JOBS TO BE CREATED FROM PARTIAL-DEREGULATION VIA PMS IMPORTATION.

It is like Lai Mohammed is an expert in the verbal arts genre of magical speech or the phenomenon of ”Ofo” incantation wherein an ”Ofo Afose” has been placed on government policy for making what he said happen. He is setting the government up for ridicule by quickly mentioning numbers to justify government policy, we are waiting to see those numbers come to fruition.

The decision of the @mbuhari administration to peg the price of PMS to 130/145 Naira range has suddenly woken up the monster of all confrontation resulting in what I give the nomenclature ”slingshot debate” wherein meaning is more about the numbers not really the philosophy or rationality of such policy shift. It is now more about how many small stones can you fling to create dissatisfaction amongst the populace to rise up against government policy decision or how disingenuous number crunching can you put out for public consumption to make you believable.

What the government needs now is persuasive mechanism which is a powerful instrument in the hands of government/minister for information not disingenuous number crunching, such mechanism is meant ”…to Inducing a change in behavior is called compliance. Inducing a change in attitude is called persuasion. Inducing a change in belief is called either education or propaganda — depending on your perspective.”-Máire A. Dugan

The policy is good. I would prefer the government goes beyond the partial-deregulation policy presented to the public if we are going to have a sustainable regime going forward. I am happy though that importers will have to source for their forex on the open market or secondary sources that is what free market is all about let us see the magic of Laissez-faire at work free from government interference such as regulations, privileges, tariffs, and subsidies.

However, a proviso must be made here that government needs to place important condition on the importers of petroleum product (PMS) in respect of the compulsariness of establishing refineries within 2years.

In my opinion those preaching strikes or occupy Nigeria kind of protest are not realistic given the prevalent economic situation of the country coupled with the historiography of petroleum subsidy fraud and corruption in recent past.

We have had occupy Nigeria protest before and what was the result of such civil disobedience against subsidy removal? More fraud, corruption, long queues at petrol stations, Sure-P with massive fraud etc.

Sacrifice is necessary but those at the top and in govrnment must as a matter of necessity change their ways to reflect the current economic position of the country. we still see or witness financial recklessness in the corridor of power it is time to cut perks and benefits of public officials in Nigeria.

Petroleum product (PMS) is no more social good, no need for subsidy because free market argument has taken over so Nigerians must pay the market price. I am not mindful of the suffering of Nigerians on this theme but I often asked Myself the fundamental question what is/are the alternatives? We have tried subsidy it has failed, partial subsidy also failure, we cannot keep on recycling an old wine in new dazzling bottle something must give either way. Now we are going on a new adventure given the cul de sac we found ourselves.

OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE is a philosopher

Twitter @pearl2prince